Glass v. City of Cedar Rapids

• Decision Date: 21 December 1885
• Citation: 26 N.W. 75,68 Iowa 207
• Parties: GLASS AND OTHERS v. CITY OF CEDAR RAPIDS.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

68 Iowa 207

26 N.W. 75

GLASS AND OTHERS

v.CITY OF CEDAR RAPIDS.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Filed December 21, 1885.

Appeal from Linn circuit court.

Action for an injunction to restrain the defendant city from exercising jurisdiction over certain territory. There was a demurrer to the petition, and the demurrer was sustained. The plaintiffs elected to stand upon their petition, and judgment was rendered against them, dismissing their petition, and for costs. They appeal.Deacon & Smith, for appellants.

I. N. Whitman and A. R. West, for appellee.

ADAMS, J.

The city of Cedar Rapids is organized under a special charter. The question presented relates to the power of the city to enlarge its boundaries. On the twenty-ninth day of November, 1884, the question of including within the corporate limits certain territory, by an extension of the boundaries of the city, was submitted to the electors of the city and of the territory proposed to be included, and the majority of the electors voted in favor of such extension, and the mayor accordingly issued his proclamation announcing such fact. The plaintiffs are tax-payers residing upon the territory in question, and deny the validity of the proceedings. They do not deny that the proceedings were conducted in the manner prescribed by chapter 47 of the Acts of the Sixteenth General Assembly, but they deny that that statute, even as amended by chapter 158 of the Acts of the Twentieth General Assembly, conferred the power in question. Their position is that, while the electors of the city and of the territory proposed to be included might so extend the boundaries as to include the proposed territory if it were “abutting and contiguous territory, laid out in lots or parcels containing two acres or less,” there is no provision by which the boundaries of the city, acting under a special charter, can be so extended as to include territory, like the territory in question, which is admitted to consist of land not laid out into lots, except 40 acres, which tract of 40 acres is remote and distant from the platted portion of the city, and the whole of which territory is used solely for agricultural and horticultural purposes.

The question presented requires a construction of the statute referred to. Turning to the statute, we find the first section to be in these words: “That, in addition to the methods now provided by law, any city in this state may have its limits enlarged in the manner herein prescribed.” The plaintiffs contend that the purpose of the statute is to provide only an additional method of accomplishing results which could be accomplished under an existing statute. Section 431 of the Code provides for the annexation of a certain kind of territory by a decree of the circuit court. The territory that can be annexed by that method must be abutting and contiguous, and laid out in lots or parcels containing two acres or less; and the plaintiffs' contention is that only such territory can be annexed by election, because if other territory could be annexed under chapter 47 referred to, then the statute would have the effect to provide something more than an additional method, to-wit, a substantial right which could not be exercised under the old statute at all.

It is not to be denied, we think, that, looking at the first section of chapter 47, which we have set out above, there would seem to be much force in the plaintiffs' position. But we do not think that there is necessarily any inconsistency in providing what is called an additional method for enlarging the boundaries of a city, and allow, by such method, territory to be brought in different from that which could be brought in by the method to which the new method is additional.

Section 4 of the act in question certainly contemplates that territory may be annexed where the same is not laid off into lots of two acres or less, and we have to say that, taking the whole statute t...